


an insider look into the world of university life with a sibling ~150 miles away

by eruditeprincess



Category: Solitaire - Alice Oseman
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Multi, from tori's perspective, it's in essence vingettes of tori's life, lucas ryan sets fire to chicken nuggets, minor michael/tori
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 11:34:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16094852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eruditeprincess/pseuds/eruditeprincess
Summary: Tori and Charlie are at university, separated by approximately 150 miles. As siblings do, they communicate mostly through the occasional facebook post and texts.The story of Nick and Charlie's relationship in a university AU, told through the eyes of Tori as she deals with life and Michael Holden.Written for the Osemanverse Big Bang 2018.





	an insider look into the world of university life with a sibling ~150 miles away

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I am aware this is probably terrible. You are free to tell me that.
> 
> This is intended for the Osemanverse Big Bang project. Once the art that is supposed to accompany this fic is posted, I will link it.
> 
> Read the other works in the Big Bang project if you haven't already, dear reader; those fics are fab and the authors worked so hard on their fics! Also the artists are amazing!
> 
> This is honestly the best iteration this fic is going to be.
> 
> I'm glad to have been part of the Big Bang project, and apologise in advance for this fic in general. It was supposed to be much better, but life and my ambition got in the way. This fic is a bit of a mess, and may eventually get edited to be better. I don't know. I did my best, and that is what counts! I know parts are undeveloped, and I reckon I'll continue this to ensure it gets resolved at some point, but for now it is a one-shot.
> 
> It'd be cool if people enjoyed this, but if you don't, really don't worry about it. I may continue this at some point. This is what I'm okay to post thus far, and I know it's all over the place.
> 
> A note: a lot of this is taken from my first year university experience. University is hard, but I love it, and that's the reason I did this AU. The uni Tori attends is based off of the university I am currently studying at. The tedx talk mentioned in the fic is a real one by Johnny Chiodini - I highly recommend it.
> 
> My tumblr is erudite-princess, and feel free to chat to me about stuff on there. I don't own these fab characters, as they are Alice Oseman's characters, and I hope people like this in some way.
> 
> Thank you to the Osemanverse Big Bang team for organising this as it was super fun to be part of. The authors and artists involved in this project deserve the world with their talent.
> 
> (also read Heartstopper, it is absolutely rad!)

“I swear to every deity out there if you do not contact me, I am dragging myself down to London on the first train out to check you are fine, do you understand me?” Tori’s eyes held an almost manic gaze as she solemnly regarded her brother, her hand softly gripping his shoulder, “I don’t give a shit that it’s three hours away, I will come down to check up on you.”

“I’ll text, I promise. Even ring you, sometimes. You sound just like mum, you know that, right?” Charlie pulled her into a hug, and he felt her relax.

“Yeah, but my brother is going off to university. A city one, unlike the one in the middle of pissing nowhere like I chose. There’s danger in the city, and,” she lowered her voice, “ _ boys _ , who might see you and be dicks because people are dickish.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ll make sure I eat, and make friends, and enjoy myself. I'll be fine,” Charlie assured her, and she nodded, her lips pursed. 

“I'm going to miss you,” she said, and Charlie hugged her close.

“Come on, you’re what, 160 odd miles away? You can visit on the train, check in. It isn’t long until we’ll both be back for Christmas. Plus I want to see your university’s campus.”   
“Obviously. My university has the prettiest campus,” Tori’s voice cracked slightly as she spoke, and Charlie knew she was trying to not get too emotional, mostly because her crying would set him off too, and then it’d be a spiral from there.

 

Tori knew it was useless to sustain a constant state of worry about Charlie’s state once he had been driven down to London, a week before she moved back into university, to wherever he was staying, but she also knew it wouldn’t stop her from worrying anyway.  _ Breathe _ , she thought to herself as she sat down,  _ he can handle himself _ . She looked around the room she had been assigned for the year by her university, staring at the white walls that kind of made her accommodation look like it was part of a prison rather than a university. She sighed, remembering she needed to unpack before somebody swung by her room and wanted her to meet her new flatmates, who were all seeming to stomp by her room as they moved in. The clamour of moving in day, even a year on from her freshers moving in, was hectic, and she was just grateful to be already acquainted with the grounds. She was lucky enough to get a room on campus for second year, and she knew that she would eventually come to regret it, if the noise outside her room gave any indication of her new flatmates.

 

She made sure to text Charlie before she went down to predrinks, a quick  _ you okay _ . He responded quickly with  _ I’m fine thanks MUM _ . Tori rolled her eyes as she shot back with  _ at least I know how to use emojis _ . Charlie responded with two laughing face emojis, before writing  _ gotta go, out w flat tonight _ . Her response of  _ any cute boys yet  _ was left unanswered, but she was satisfied that he was alright as she checked her appearance in the mirror, before heading out of her door to meet the rest of her block.

 

.

 

She knew her block was big, but this seemed a  _ little _ excessive. How many students realistically should share a block? According to her university, 90 students was a reasonable amount.

 

They had all gathered in the middle staircase, a message out on the block group chat earlier that day summoning everyone downstairs for predrinks that night. She was reluctant to go, but two of the girls had knocked on her door and had asked her to go down with them for moral support and one of them had brought along the expensive vodka and some decent mixers (name brand, not the shitty knockoffs they'd all be drinking come week 3), as well as decent cider, and she felt like she should. Especially as she knew what the lads were like with what they dubbed ‘new blood’ and she would be damned if they got taken advantage of by others.

 

Predrinks was similar to the previous year, in which she had sat downstairs with her block playing ring of fire and inevitably been forced to down the middle cup as she drew the final King. She stared around the circle at the people whose faces she didn’t know surrounding her, and grabbed a cider from the communal pile forming in the corner. She settled into a comfortable spot under the staircase, near the boy whose portable speakers had granted him the esteemed position of being allowed to control the predrinks music. As she sipped from her cider, she felt herself begin to open up, surrounded by girls in her flat, and she felt the tension she’d been holding in her shoulders since she saw the car carrying Charlie disappear down the road, off to London, dissipate.

 

Freshers flew by in a blur, and Tori was texting Charlie each day to check he was alive. He responded with a variation on  _ of course MUM _ , and she felt a wave of relief when the text flashed up on her phone, even when it was 5pm and it was obvious he had only just woken up. She found herself enjoying going out with her block, making friends with a few of the girls on her floor. Her, Becky, Frances and Raine were the group that stuck together on nights out, watching their drinks and dancing together, but they were occasionally joined by some of the other girls in their flat, but those girls didn’t stick with them the whole night, instead choosing to circulate around the ballroom of the students union. By the end of freshers, Tori felt as if she had girls she could hang out with in her flat. She hoped Charlie had met some nice people in his flat.

 

.

 

The kitchen was on fire. Well, not her flat’s kitchen. Yet.

 

It was two weeks in and here she was, shivering in her pyjamas outside her block at three in the morning, a soft orange glow coming from the kitchen of the flat below hers.

 

Evidently Lucas had been making chicken nuggets while drunk and left them in too long.  _ Again _ .

 

She cursed Lucas Ryan and his entire existence as she felt raindrops begin to fall on her shoulders, the slow thrumming of the rain on the pavement as the rain grew heavier and heavier competing with the loud beeping of the fire alarm. She had marked Lucas as being trouble from the moment she met him. She didn’t anticipate his stupidity when he was drunk. It was either stupidity  _ or _ he had an affinity for fire, and she was really hoping to not have the block burn down before the end of the first semester.

 

She looked around at the other students huddled outside the block. One girl had brought out her duvet and wrapped herself in it, the puffiness almost obscuring her. A few of the boys had stray glitter around their cheeks, and one had red lipstick smeared around his mouth. The girl that was the evident source of the smeared red lipstick was stood next to him, her dark hair loose around her shoulders and a mark forming on her neck. Tori felt guilty for looking at this girl for too long, not wanting to try to judge another person’s decision, and her eyes were instead drawn to a boy stood further from the group that were currently chanting ‘lads lads lads’ around a very sheepish-looking Lucas. The boy was clutching a bag slung over his shoulder, and he had a big puffy coat wrapped around him. His big brown-framed glasses were fogging up as the rain got heavier. He was typing frantically on his phone, shielding the screen within his coat, but when he looked up, he caught her eye, and smiled at her. Tori immediately began staring at the floor, her hands twisting in her pyjama bottoms, the stupid shorts that had seemed like a good idea in her boiling-hot room until she had to get up for the fire alarm in the freezing cold. She felt a presence next to her, and saw the boy she had been caught staring at next to her.

“Hi!” the boy smiled brightly, and she almost winced at his peppiness at this stupid hour of the night (morning? She was never certain what to refer to it as). She would have been up anyway, working best at night on equations, the problems whizzing through her mind. When she was back home, Charlie always complained that she was setting a bad example for Oliver, who she knew would have happily stayed up for hours, playing Mario Kart or designing new things that could have only sprouted from her little brother’s mind. The boy next to her seemed like he was used to being up at this time, and he tried to make eye contact with her as he adjusted his bag. She steadfastly kept her eyes on the floor.

“Hey,” she kept her voice deliberately even as she stared at the puddle slowly forming around her feet. Her top was slowly getting wetter, sticking to her shoulders, and she felt the stare of the boy next to her still on her face.

“I’m Michael Holden,” he said brightly, and he stuck out a hand.

“Tori,” she responded, praying that security would be done soon and the fire would be extinguished so she could sink into her bed and sleep. The minutes ticked by, and Tori wished she’d brought her phone outside so she could at least scroll through twitter or tumblr, or even discord, on the server everyone within the server declared to be ‘cursed’. Instead, she stood in silence, the rain turning her hair heavy as it stuck to her face in limp strands. Michael turned away from her, focusing on the steady orange blaze slowly consuming the blind in Lucas’ kitchen. She was increasingly regretting not having her phone, with no sign of security on the horizon. She saw another girl checking the back of her university ID card, phone in hand, and was secretly glad she wasn’t the one having to call security to inform them of the fire. She generally didn’t do human interaction at this hour of the night. She watched as security drove to the scene, seeing all the students shivering in the cold, and took Lucas aside for what she presumed to be a small chat about a little something called  _ fire safety when cooking chicken nuggets whilst drunk _ . She wouldn’t be surprised if she found an email in her inbox the next week, warning about fire safety in halls of residence again. She was mildly grateful when everyone was cleared to go in, and even though she looked over the heads trickling into the building, she couldn’t see Michael’s head amongst them. She sent a text to Charlie, lamenting the state of the world and the existence of Lucas Ryan as an allegedly functioning member of university society, and she got back a simple  _ haha, sleep well _ as she drifted off.

 

.

 

_ I met a boy _ was the text she woke up to, twenty minutes before her first lecture of the day. She checked the sender - Charlie - and texted back quickly with  _ is he nice?  _ Charlie quickly responded with a simple  _ yep _ , followed up by  _ but I think he's straight help he's cute _ . She texted back a simple  _ you could talk to him _ , which garnered a scared-face emoji and  _ nope he’s too cute I got tongue tied _ . She wished at that moment that she could see her brother, speak to him face to face rather than over the phone. She texted him with  _ miss you _ , before putting her phone down and starting her day.

 

.

 

_ Charlie Spring has mentioned you in a comment. _

 

The notification flashed at the top of her phone screen as she tried to focus on the page of equations in front of her. She tapped the notification to be confronted with an alignment chart. Charlie had tagged her and someone called Nick Nelson in it. Upon closer inspection, the alignment chart appeared to be questioning alignments based off of the favourite non-Harry Potter children’s series that people read. Nick had already responded to Charlie’s comment with ‘dumbass bitch’, signifying A Series of Unfortunate Events. Tori responded with  _ edgy thot ofc _ , and put her phone down. She saw that Charlie had reacted to Nick’s comment with a heart, and she thought she should text him, but she knew she had a lecture soon and needed to get her problem sheet done. However, the mystery of who Nick Nelson was haunted her mind. She hoped that Charlie wasn’t going to get hurt, like he had with Ben, those horrible months ago. She clicked through to Nick’s profile, telling herself that she ostensibly deserved a break from the letters and numbers mocking her from her problems sheet, and also it was her duty to check that Nick wasn’t a dick and wouldn’t hurt Charlie.

 

She knew otherwise she would be worrying and turn to her old faithful video of a tedx talk, a guy talking about how a video game can save a life. His voice was soothing, the thirteen minute talk relaxing her muscles softly, until she would always go on to focus on the next issue she felt bubble up in her brain. As she clicked through to Nick’s profile, she resisted the urge to just switch over to the video, persisting in her search for who on Earth Nick Nelson was.

 

Nick seemed nice enough on the surface. His profile revealed he lived in a village near them, and he had multiple photos with a dog she presumed to be his, all captioned  _ good doggo nellie nelson _ . She privately agreed that Nellie did look like a wonderful doggo. Scrolling through Nick’s feed, she found photos of him with a rugby ball clutched in his hands, grinning in the middle of a field whilst covered in mud. She kept scrolling, finding photos of Nick with Charlie, out at the London Eye and other tourist locations in London. Charlie had reacted to each of these photographs with a heart, and she just hoped he wasn’t going to get hurt. Nick seemed lovely, and she hoped she wouldn’t see her brother get hurt.

 

Not after the Ben Hope incident.

 

.

 

Nick Nelson was nothing like she expected.

 

She had come home for the Christmas holidays to find a sandy-haired boy sitting on the sofa, animatedly chatting with Oliver about tractors. She shot a quizzical look at Charlie, who was sat next to Nick, hand close to Nick’s hand. She had expected Nick to be taller, broader, but the man she met was around Charlie’s height, built a little wider than Charlie, but not by too much. His jeans had pale-coloured dog fur on them, presumably from the dog she had seen in his profile, and as he smiled, his eyes crinkled around the edge. She saw Nick looking at Charlie as Charlie looked at her, and she was distracted from starting a conversation as her mum exited the kitchen.

“Tori!” her mum cried, forcing her to drop her bag as she was embraced in a hug.

“Hi mum,” she responded, pulling back from the hug uncomfortably.

“Charlie, Oliver, say hello to your sister! Oh, Tori, this is Nick, Charlie’s friend,” Nick stuck out a hand as Oliver looked up, running over to embrace her in a huge hug.

“Tori! Nick is so cool and he doesn’t live too far and he has told me all about his degree and now I want to do engineering just like him, and-”

“Hey, hey, hey, slow down!” Charlie chastised Oliver gently, and Oliver looked up at her.

“How are you?” he was still a little out of breath from his extended talking, and she chuckled softly.

“I’m good, Ollie. You okay? Not getting into trouble with school?”

“No!” Oliver’s voice was indignant as he responded, and she ruffled his hair, marvelling at how quickly he had grown in the three months since she’d last seen him. He was nearly up to her shoulder now, and she wouldn’t be shocked if he was taller than her by the time she graduated.

 

She saw Charlie sneaking glances over at Nick every so often as Oliver got over seeing her back at home and went back to chatting with Nick, who was patiently answering every question Oliver threw at him. She could see why Charlie would want to be friends with Nick, and secretly wondered if Nick was the boy Charlie had a crush on. She decided to keep it to herself, knowing that Charlie may be embarrassed, but she kept an eye on the pair on the sofa, and their lingering hug as Nick left, waving cheerfully as he set off down the street.

 

.

 

She was in the library, in the dead of winter, struggling under the weight of what felt like a thousand books (but was in fact two enormous tomes, as well as a multitude of small ones, for the stupid history module she had chosen to take to fill out her credits for the year), when she encountered Michael Holden again.

 

He had crashed into her, sending her books scattering and her tumbling to the floor. She sighed, reaching for the books closest to her in order to try to gather them into some semblance of order, not even processing him helping her until their hands brushed. She jerked back at the contact, sending the books flying into her sternum, briefly winding her. She could barely process his apologies, only doing so once she had noticed his attire.

 

Michael Holden was wearing legwarmers in the library.

 

She had heard things about Michael Holden since the fire alarm, all the way back in the previous semester. It had mostly been from people who went to school with him, stories of him attempting a flashmob in the cafeteria and failing (she did feel a little sorry for him there), and of him winning medals for ice skating but never wanting his achievements to be flaunted by the school, and wild speculation about whether or not he and Lucas were secretly together (someone had christened their names together to be ‘mucus’, and she shuddered at the thought of the ship name being something so peculiar).

 

However, nothing had prepared her for the sight of neon yellow legwarmers around Michael Holden’s ankles, like he had just stepped out of an 80s fitness DVD. Stranger still was the fact he had paired it with a muted burgundy jumper, as well as black jeans. He must have seen her staring at the neon legwarmers, as he gave a small shrug and simply said, “my ankles get cold.”

 

She couldn’t formulate an adequate response beyond  _ what the actual fuck _ as she reached for another book, so she stayed silent as she gathered up the scattered books, settling them back in her arms. She wasn’t expecting him to offer to help her up, a pale hand sticking out to try to help pull her up. She accepted, being pulled up by his surprising strength, before setting off to check out the books, leaving Michael alone. She half expected him to run after her, try to continue talking to her, and as she set off up the hill to her halls from the library, she felt weirdly disappointed that he didn’t.

 

She almost wished she could talk to Charlie about everything.

 

.

 

_ Charlie Spring is in a relationship. _

 

She almost knocked her cup of tea to the floor in shock as she read the notification at the top of her facebook feed. She immediately liked it, resisting the urge to immediately message Charlie with a swift  _ what the fuck why didn’t you tell me earlier _ , waiting to see who liked the post, and also to get the news from her mother when she inevitably freaked out about it. After the Ben Hope incident, none of them were sure Charlie would ever want a relationship. She was surprised when Charlie told her he liked Nick, as Nick had been so different from Ben and all the other boys Charlie had developed crushes on before. She texted Charlie a simple  _ happy for you + hope you’re okay x _ , before moving the mug of tea, which was teetering precariously on the edge of her desk, risking her course books every time she jolted the desk, even minutely, closer to the centre of the desk. Her phone chimed a few minutes later, and she dived to grab it, almost sending her tea flying over her meticulous notes. As she righted her mug away from the notes, and began to wonder whether she should just give up on the tea completely, she read the message Charlie had sent her, eyes scanning the block of text that could be summed up with  _ he kissed me I like him so much he’s so nice _ , and she smiled at Charlie’s gushing, remembering how hesitant he was with Ben. She flicked onto facebook again, to find the status updated to read  _ Charlie Spring is in a relationship with Nick Nelson _ .

 

To say she was happy for her brother was an understatement. She wouldn’t say she let out an involuntary squeal at the sight of the post, nor the accompanying photo, in which Charlie looked happier than ever. She clicked off the post, smiling at her brother being okay.

 

She knew he’d be fine.

 

She also knew that she would never forgive Nick Nelson if he hurt her brother.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed, feel free to leave kudos!
> 
> Once more, thank you to the Osemanverse Big Bang team for organising this project.


End file.
